Wisconsin stabbing victim up and walking, her parents say

The 12-year-old girl stabbed 19 times by classmates allegedly living out a website fantasy is walking the halls of the hospital with her father – “no machine, no tubes, just she and her dad,” the girl’s parents say on a website that is raising money for the family.

“Our little girl is a fighter and is making strides of improvement each and every day,” the parents posted on the website gofundme, which has set a goal of $250,000 to help with medical bills and care.

They were the parents’ first public comments since the girl was stabbed Saturday in a wooded park in Waukesha, Wisconsin, about 20 miles from Milwaukee.

Two 12-year-old classmates, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, have been charged as adults with first-degree attempted homicide. All three girls attend Horning Middle School in Waukesha.

For months, Weier and Geyser had been scouring the Internet for stories about a tall, creepy, blank-faced figure called Slender Man, a fictional bogeyman who they insisted was real and lived in a mansion in a nearby forest, according to a criminal complaint.

Weier told a detective she thought she would impress Slender Man and be able to go to live with him by killing someone, the complaint said. She and Geyser singled out a classmate in February and began making detailed, ever-shifting plans which they would whisper about on the bus.

The attack

On Saturday morning, after having a sleepover with their victim, Weier and Geyser stashed away a kitchen knife and lured her into the woods by telling her they would go birdwatching and play hide and seek.

“People that trust you are very gullible,” Geyser told a detective. They passed by a public bathroom and some trees, and then, “Stabby, stab, stab,” Geyser said.

But as online fantasy shifted into the real word and Weier heard her victim’s screams, she wavered, the complaint said. “I hate you!” the victim screamed. “I trusted you!”

“The bad part of me wanted her to die,” Weier told the detective. “The good part of me wanted her to live.”

Geyser was not so conflicted: “It was weird that I didn’t feel remorse,” she told a detective, the complaint said. She later added that it was “probably wrong.”

A bicyclist, Greg Steinberg, came upon the girl at the edge of a wooded area near David’s Park on Waukesha’s south side, police said. Steinberg can be heard telling a 911 operator that a 12-year-old female “appears to have been stabbed.”

“She’s having trouble breathing,” he says in a steady voice. “She says she has been stabbed multiple times.” During the five-minute recording, a faint female voice can be heard in the background.

The victim does not respond when asked by Steinberg, “Who did this to you?”

“I don’t know if she wants to be talked to,” he tells the 911 operator.

The victim’s parents say on the website that their daughter has also been “out of bed watching TV in her wheelchair … She seems to like sitting in her wheelchair as opposed to the lying in bed. She still gets a little ill when she easts so we’re taking that slowly. She also gets overwhelmed very easily, so we’re going to try to limit visitors and allow her to have a little alone time.”